


These Days

by mountainsbeyondmountains



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Melancholy, dreams for season 7 that will never come true....
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-04
Updated: 2017-04-04
Packaged: 2018-10-14 16:41:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10540425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mountainsbeyondmountains/pseuds/mountainsbeyondmountains





	

Never can she sleep through the nights these days. Everyone told her, voices low with worry, "My lady, you need rest," but Sansa's already spent half her life asleep.

Each day the sun sets sooner than it did the last evening, and each morning she waits longer and longer for the dawn. They call this the Long Night and little do they know how truly they speak. There is never enough time except when she's supposed to be dead to the world, and if exhausted hours were worth anything, her wealth would be inexhaustible. 

In the morning her eyes run red as if she's just stopped weeping, but she hasn't cried in years. There's just no rest. Sansa closes her eyes and sees her father's head rotting on a pike. The smells of smoke and salt gag her, and there's the taste of bitter blood in her mouth. She inspects her skin for bruises because she feels them all grasping and slicing her, the Kingsguard, the mob, her husband. The silence of the room is replaced with the dead king's glee: "Scream  _louder!_ " And she does, she does, she does, but she's built her walls too high and no one is brave enough to try to scale them, so she shakes and sobs alone in her room night after night after night. The howl of a wolf was always mournful but never so especially until now. 

Tonight might be much the same except the castle is not quiet. Usually it's like a crypt, but tonight the army is taking shelter within the walls of Winterfell. They're raucous and bitter and starving. She's the Lady of this Keep, and she knows they fight on her command, to save her own skin among others', but still she cannot trust them. They're men. 

Still, she must drop off eventually, because Jon wakes her.

"The fire's dead," he says. The dwindling embers are small as stars in the room's black. "Should I rekindle it?"

"No," she answers. "Wood's scarce. I'll go without."

"It's good to have fire nearby these days." As if he anticipates animated carcasses to swarm through the swathed windows any moment. Perhaps he does.

Sansa can't see it through the dark, but she feels his calloused hand on her arm. "You've goosebumps," he remarks. 

"It's not just the cold." 

Every part of her is urging him not to pull away, and he listens. "How is the castle?"

They call it in the only sanctuary left in the north. Sansa doesn't care if it's burned to rubble three times over and only the tunnels remain, she will never abandon her ancestral home again. She'll die here with a smile on her face rather than retreat south. "It's not the same. How is the war?" 

"It never changes," he replies. He takes on a hushed confessional tone. He's the Lord Commander, only here in this room with no witnesses but her can he express doubts. "I feel like a dead thing, Sansa. Hardly any different from the enemy. The wights I cut down today were brothers fighting at my side yesterday. The red witch- she left part of me behind." 

Then Sansa's hands are on him. She traces her way like she's blind. He has more scars than skin, but a small area over his heart is still unblemished. "I can feel it beating," she says. "You're alive. I promise." 

"Only because you're here," he says so quiet, as if he hopes she might not hear. He's forever uncertain. She hasn't seen him in half a year. So much time has gone by. 

He always asks, "Are you certain, are you sure?" No one ever asked before, but he sounds astounded that she's real, alive, choosing him. As if she would ever choose anybody else. 

They never have enough time, because Sansa knows and Jon knows this cannot continue in the daylight. There was a  _reason_ Sansa doesn't want the fire. Light shows a different sort of ghost than dark does. A small, selfish part of her doesn't want winter to end because when the clouds clear and the snow melts, when the birds sing again and spring is more than a dream, when the enemy is vanquished and Jon returns home for good, she'll have to say goodbye to him. The world knows them as siblings. He's the Lord Commander, she's the Lady of Winterfell. Duty is a cold bedfellow. They'll only ever have the nights, and they won't last forever, much as they might seem to. By the time they end, Sansa hopes she will be able to sleep again. 

 


End file.
